The California Democratic Party Convention came to a raucous close Sunday afternoon following a convention with an energy brought forth by new delegates elected largely as Bernie Sanders supporters. The divide between new and returning delegates extended from caucus meetings to the state party chair’s race. In the end, the establishment largely won.
The hottest issue was the state party chair’s race, which was won by current vice chair Eric Bauman by 63 votes. Supporters of Kimberly Ellis challenged the results, although found no formal way to do so. They repeatedly sought points of order from the floor, which were either ruled out of order or simply ignored. At one point a motion was made for a “revote” from the floor, although outgoing chair John Burton stated what was clear–many delegates don’t hang around for Sunday. However, there were far more people in the convention hall Sunday than attended for speeches by three of the four gubernatorial candidates Saturday (Chiang, Eastin, and Villaraigosa).
Oddly, environmental activist and possible gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer was bumped from Saturday’s schedule and spoke today to far more people than would have heard him late Saturday afternoon.
The wrangling over the results in the chair’s race led to an hour delay in the general session Sunday morning as party and the chair candidates’ attorneys huddled to come up with a solution. In the end, it was agreed that both parties will get a future opportunity to review the ballots, including those that were rejected for things such as non-matching signatures. Of course, the unanswered question is what happens if major questions are raised about the ballots? Would the party hold another convention in the summer (not going to happen)?
While Ellis signed off on this deal and was not seen in the convention hall on Sunday, her supporters were not pleased. As the chair’s gavel was handed from Burton to Bauman, Ellis supporters–a very sizable contingent of delegates walked out and marched over to Cesar Chavez park for a rally on a very toasty Sacramento afternoon.
Throughout the contentious session, Burton was colorful even by Burton standards. I joked with a radio reporter in the press pen that she was going to have a helluva editing job if anything she was recording was going to make it to air. At one point, as Ellis supporters were loudly yelling “point of order!,” Burton said “F*** You” and extended two middle fingers from the podium. It was clear that, when he turned the gavel over to Bauman with few comments, he was relieved to exit stage right.
In the runoff election for state party secretary, in a win for the California Young Democrats, Jenny Bach prevailed. The 25-year-old Bach is a consultant to the Asian Pacific Islander Caucus in the State Senate. Bach’s father, a Vietnamese immigrant, was proudly waving signs on Thirteenth Street in the morning before the runoff vote.
State Senator Josh Newman, who is facing a recall over his vote for the gas tax in the transportation plan, took the stage, wearing his famous bear costume head. The recall petitions are still in circulation, with the effort being led by former San Diego councilmember and radio talk show host Carl DeMaio. DeMaio may be setting himself up for a run for governor, as Newman’s district is not in the target area for KOGO-AM, the station on which his show is heard.
The question for the party is where it goes from here. People will be talking about how divided it is. Twenty years ago, I was a party activist, serving as a county central committee chair and leader in College Dems and Young Dems. I’ve seen divided conventions before. People sitting in the bar at the airport Sunday afternoon were likely talking about the division and whether the California Nurses Association’s executive director’s threat of a split of the party will come true.
The fact is that the chatter of the division with the party will last a month, but will have no lasting effect as people return to county central committee meetings. A few counties will continue to have fights over ballot measure endorsements and local elections, but the state party meets once a year and there won’t be officer elections for another four years. It’ll blow over.